


Seven by Seven

by Happy_Cow



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Demons, Demons Are Assholes, Dominant Kylo Ren, F/M, Kylo is ??? in demon years, Kylo is a demon, Kylo is weird, Older Man/Younger Woman, Poor Rey (Star Wars), Possessive Behavior, Pseudo-Incest, Rey Is Seventeen, Rey is a witch, Slow Build, Witch Hunts, Witches, to porn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:01:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27163555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happy_Cow/pseuds/Happy_Cow
Summary: “In seven days, I will take your heart.”Not a revocation, but an amendment. It was always his intent, always in his nature.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 24
Kudos: 47
Collections: Ijustfellintothissendhelp





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaAAA Spooktober is almost ending!!! ;-;  
> I m going to work on an old fic, but I could not help think up this cute witch fic  
> ;w; thank u for readin

Long ago, in a dark wood, there was a girl of seven hiding in the brush. She was a quiet child, that daughter of Mr. Device. Her clothes were often torn and filthy, her hair a mess of tangles. The few that could have pitied her were repelled by her strange, solitary habits. _Like father, like daughter,_ they supposed, inwardly deciding that each deserved the other, condemning both.

Her father screamed her name and broke twigs beneath his heavy boots. Her ribs ached from laying on the ground so still. Creatures lurked in the night, yet the girl felt safer in the dark than in that filthy, fungal-smelling hovel. Mr. Device crooned to her, taunted her. He’d catch her like he caught her bitch whore mother. Her stupid, pigshit mother. He’d skin her hide like a cat.

The girl sucked in a breath, and tasted the premonitory scent of turned earth. If only this could be a nightmare. If only morning would come. If only her real parents would take her away from this place. She would give anything.

The lumbering, spine-crushing footsteps grew closer. His breathing wheezed out of his congested snout, as if he could smell out her fear. The end was coming.

“ _I smell the blood of a witch_.” 

A muffled, nasal voice touched her senses. This was not her father’s drunken bellow.

“Where are you, little one?” it asked, softly.

_Can it be_ , she wondered, _someone to help me?_ His voice is cultured, but why does he speak of blood? The girl breathed in deeply, and tasted the sweet musk of earth... no. A bitter, burnt scent malingered in the air; she did not know how she could have missed it before. Her nose crinkled. Perhaps herself or her father left something burning inside the house. 

Mr. Device retched lustily onto the side of the path and she smelled no more. Her eyes watered; her stomach churned.

“Should you need my help,” the man said, “call upon me.” He gave her his name. “I will answer.”

At the sound of his name, the smell of burning filled her lungs. The girl coughed, to clear the debris from her lungs. Her flesh shuddered, and her body grew cold. At the same time that she learned what the man was, her father cried out in triumph: she had been found. 

The girl slid out from the thicket of brambles, and ripped open new tears in her dress and the flesh of her face and hands. Either way, she realized, her life was forfeit. As Mr. Device staggered towards her, she summoned him — _Kylo Ren_.

Mr. Device released a wheezing groan as though he were asleep. He continued to stumble towards her, and so she screamed out that name so hard that her chest stung. Her father sank slowly to his knees, prostrating to her. He lowered his head. A long sigh whistled through his snout, and then all was silent. 

Behind the body of her father, stood a pillar of shadow. From nothing, there emerged the white tip of a patrician’s nose, the cross of a man’s brow, and a well-formed mouth. 

The girl could have run and been killed for it, or spared. She was scared; she could not help the trembling when he drew his marble hands up her chest, mending her ribcage. She freely gave him her name. _Rey_ , he said, smiling. Then, “That means ‘ _King_ ’, little lamb.” He refused her the surname of her father, which she accepted. She knew that a debt was owed, and that he would collect. Dimly, she recollected that the man was like a wolf or a bear — that he would eat some or all of her. 

But the devil bundled her in his arms, and raised her up into the air. He placed his face to her scalp and breathed in the scent of her unwashed hair. Rey offered him her right arm, and he snorted, bemused.

“You are far too small and too ugly for me to eat,” he said cheerfully. “I will eat you in ten years, once I have fattened you up.”

Rey understood that pigs could be fattened up, left to wallow in a stinking mud pit. Would he turn her into a pig? Quickly she shook her head, horrified.

“It won’t be so bad,” he said, placing his forehead against hers. “We will tell everyone that I am your true father. I will make those ten years into a paradise so that this night will be a distant memory.”

Rey thought of this. She took a small breath to steady herself and there was the scent of burning. It clung to his soft cloak, and his hair. “This is,” he said, “the kindest offer that I will grant you. I will have you then, or now.”

Ten years was a long period of time to Rey. She would be seventeen — a grown woman. He spoke as if he would become family to her... _Will it hurt?_ she asked tightly.

Ten years passed.

It began to rain.

* * *

Dimly, the girl pulled her cloak tight around herself. The doorway to the house sat grandly, and darkly before her. A rich scent of broth wafted forth from inside, wetting her mouth. Yet she could not make herself move. 

This house with its shuttered windows and smoothed stone floors had served as shelter and schoolhouse and ‘church’ for more than half of her life. Ivy reached tendriled fingertips towards the gabled roof. This house kept her warm in the winter and cool in the summer; it sheltered her from the elements. And yet today, of all days, she felt safer outdoors, beneath the storm. 

A muffled voice issued from inside; “Rey?” he called. “Won’t you come in? You’ll catch a cold...”

A year ago she would have gladly obeyed. A week ago, she would have entered and stuffed herself like a sow. Of all things, she had wished to be a good, obedient daughter to the man who saved her life, while she was still able. Those ten years have passed as if in a dream.

“Ben,” she cried, “I must speak with you, please.” Rainwater dribbled down her nose and lips.

“I really must return to the kitchen,” he said in a chiding tone. “Come in and warm yourself—.”

“I am not going inside,” Rey blurted out.

The house went silent, asides from the rain splashing onto the stone walkway. The sweet scent of wet earth filled her senses and gave her a single purpose of mind.

“ _Kylo Ren_ ,” she said, “ _I summon thee_.” The next breath that she drew reeked of ash and smoke, and she doubled over and coughed to clear her lungs. The door swung open, slowly. The devil stood inside the doorway, his face carved from marble. He did not speak.

Slowly, Rey drew herself up to her full height. In a weakened voice she said, “Ten years ago, on this night, you made a covenant, with me.” She reached into her cloak, her fingertips brushing the iron stake hidden inside. “I have not forgotten,” she said, “and I will not offer myself up freely.”

He watched her for a moment. “So,” he ventured, “you thought I was serious.” 

“Renounce it, then, _demon_.”

“I cannot renounce something that does not exist,” he said, smiling. “Where is the mark that I made upon your body?” He stepped out into the rain and Rey stepped backwards and pulled out the stake. “What sealed this so-called covenant?”

A kiss. “Do not question my memory,” she growled.

“Could you recite to me the terms that I gave you?” he asked.

“In ten years, you would take my soul—.”

“No,” he said, patiently. “But that is forgivable; you have no eidetic memory. ‘In ten years time, I will eat your heart, your eyes, your tongue, your little toes, your fingers, your ears, and the very tip of your sweet little nose!’” The rain dappled his eyelashes and dripped down his snout.

For a moment, she was thrown back in time, to the day her father died. She remembered the pad of his finger brushing her nose, and that bright peal of laughter out of her lips. To a child, it was all a game. To a devil—. “It was all sport to you,” she said faintly. 

“No!” he cried. “No! I tell you, child, that there was no covenant!”

“Then why did—. What have these ten years been?” she asked. “Why did you stay? If not to fatten me up, then to pretend to be my father? Why? Out of the _goodness_ of your tainted heart?”

“Stop,” he said flatly. “Enough questions, Rey. I am tired and cold. Come into the house.”

“No.”

“... _Please_ , come into the house,” he said. “I love you very much.”

“So you _say_ , _demon_. If I go in tonight, will I wake up to see the morning?” she asked. 

“I know where you go from here,” he said. “I would follow. You are _mine_ , and mine alone.”

_He is making open threats._ With horror, she realized that she had been correct. Lightning flashed upon his face. Rey cried out in fear and clutched the stake in her hands. 

The scent of sulfur filled her lungs and the air rumbled like a caged beast. “Will you come into the house,” he asked. Rey shook her head. A sigh breathed through his nose. He turned his face towards the sky.

Rey backed away, fully intending to leave. She had intended to stay the night at an inn, but she had not planned on the rain. At first she did not catch his voice. 

“... seven days,” he said. “In seven days, I will take your heart.” 

Her steps paused, and she raised her head to regard him. “Seal it,” she ordered. “I accept your amendment; now _seal it_. Let us make this a ‘ _real_ ’ covenant, by your own standards.” Her skin bristled at the tone she used against her own father. Still, she raised her right arm and pulled back the sleeve to expose the inside of her elbow. 

He made no comment on the proceedings, nor the stake in her trembling left hand. “You truly think yourself a witch,” was what he said.

Rey took a step towards him, offering up her arm.

“That is,” he said, “an unwise location. Easy to discover.”

“I will tell them a _cat_ did it. Will you bite or no?”

He went on, “I would _kneel_ before you... between your thighs.” He inhaled sharply, like a bloodhound on the end of a scent.

Heat rose to her face. Before she could dare to reply, he grabbed her wrist and nuzzled the inside of her left arm. A gasp escaped her; by instinct, she tried to pull away, but the devil held fast. His fangs bit deep and then retracted. Then he swept a hand beneath his nose and turned away, entering the house.

Rey shook, and felt the cold sleep into her skin as the rain at last soaked through her fleece coat. The thin skin on the inside of her arm bore a red, angry welt, which bled pink beneath the rain. Only the scent of ash and brimstone filled the air. Her body trembled for fear of hell. She was right all along. 

She was right all along — on this night, her father would have killed her. Perhaps before or after their dinner, or in her bed, depending on his appetite. When pressed, he would not even revoke the old contract, only _amend_ it. _I love you very much_ , he had said. She sniffled pathetically, choking on a fog of emotion. A devil lied as easily as a man drew breath. He did not love her; most definitely, he could not love her. It was not in his nature; he was like the wolf in winter, scenting his prey. Only a devil could have found her and saved her life, on that day ten years ago.

Seven days. In seven days she must free herself from his grasp, or trick the devil. All the same, these would be the last seven days that she would ever spend with her beloved father. 

“Oh, do come inside,” he called after her. “I have travel tomorrow, which would be delayed should you catch a cold.”

“...oh.” She would have _six_ days to spend with her beloved father. She tucked the stake into the folds of her cloak and approached the doorway. Her wet boots crossed the threshold. “Where... where do you go?”

“To the kitchen, to check on my stew!” he replied indignantly. “Now that _you_ are spared, I must find another _stinking_ vagrant _girl-child_. It will be difficult to find one clean enough, at this _hour_ , in this _weather_ —.” Abruptly he cut short, at the expression on her face. Then he laughed heartily, before reaching out and pinching the tip of her nose. It was all a sport to him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spooktober is over,, but it lives on in my heart ;-;7  
> i think this week will be 'study til i die' week, but i will try to upload something even if I dont have the time to write~  
> thank u for readin!! pls stay warm!!!!!

The morning after, the wind in its fury whipped over the tops of trees and rendered weaker things silent. Ben Solo waved goodbye to her and stepped out of doors. Only a minute later, he returned, with his long hair wrapped around his face. Rey made some sympathetic noises in his direction, before standing up from her chair to aid the poor devil. 

Gently she swept back his hair to fold it over his ears, but when she was finished, he undid the work and let it fall over his shoulders. She placed her hands on her waist to better scold him. “Well now you are in the same position that you began on,” she chided, but it fell on deaf ears. “At least tie it back.” 

“No,” he said stubbornly.

“You can tie it back without revealing your ears,” she said. They were large and well-formed, in proportion with his long face. She went to a side table, to retrieve a spool of red ribbon, used to tie her own hair. 

When she approached, he leaned away from her, scowling. “I will look like a woman,” he argued. He glanced darkly at the doorway, as if an assassin awaited him outside. 

Rey breathed in and gathered her courage. “Well,” she said, bundling the ribbon in her hands, “when you return, at least allow me to cut your hair.” In her own ears, her voice rang tinny and nervous.

“Yes, yes,” her father said dismissively. His brow creased. 

Rey tried to listen into that dark and secret realm of her father. She understood that there were devils of all kinds and all powers. There were devils to cause war and famine, devils for every sickness, and devils of cuckoldry and perversion. Devils spoiled milk, and deafened sounds. They followed a hierarchy, with princes and archdukes, generals, banner men, judges, lawyers, scholars, doctors, merchants, hunters, wives, mistresses, whores, scoundrels, beggars, drunkards, pariahs. Even the mildest inconvenience to himself or Rey transformed into a personal insult to Kylo Ren. 

“Perhaps a wind-devil has taken offense with you,” she said in jest.

“What?” His brow raised. “Have _you_ something to do with this?” he asked.

“N-no,” Rey said.

He heard the change in her voice, and his expression blanked. Truly, since yesterday night, she had _planned_ on his leave. She still did not know his business, and he did not inquire of her what she would do in his momentary absence. Her father had taught her to play chess; every move they made now sought to check the other.

So it surprised her, when her father ruffled himself like a dark, proud cock. “Then I am more determined than ever to leave,” he huffed. “You would send a devil after _me_ , your _own father_?!”

Rey did no such thing, and she was offended not only by his accusation, but his righteous indignation. “ _You would have taken my soul last night_!” she cried.

Her accusation fell upon deaf ears. “ _Fie upon you_!” he cried, barely suppressing a smile. “ _Devilish daughter_!” He pulled open the door and the wind tore inside. _I s— — with love_ , he said, the wind absorbing his voice.

.

With or without her father, there was not a safe place for Rey in this country. There were two churches that each declared the other heretical — one supported by the King, and the other painted in the bright colors of martyrdom. Both would gladly see a witch stretched upon a rack until her limbs tore from their sockets.

All around her were the bulbous, cauliflower ears of ‘witch-hunters’, constables, or other clever little men and women who wanted an enemy removed. Rey knew that she was unusual; she and her father kept to themselves, and he _allowed_ her to go off on her own business unsupervised. She was luckier than most. There were girls who fornicated for their alms; Plutt would have sooner or later traded her for more drink. He had _tried_ before, before she was saved. Now Kylo wished to exact his price. 

Though there were plenty of ears in the village, Rey craved human companionship — _friendship_ , that was not sealed by a covenant. The wind ruffled her coat, and the sheaf of papers in her coat made a sound like cloth rippling in a breeze. She entered the Takodana inn. Her vision adjusted to the single light of the fire in the hearth; what she first took to be a log on the floor raised its head. Its triangular ears perked up, and its tail beat a rhythm against the floor. 

Rey looked round the darkened room, anxious. “One moment!” a voice cried from up the stairwell. Rey released a shuttered breath.   
  


“This _wind_ is _horrid_ ,” Maz Kanata complained. The old woman trotted down the stairs faster than one would believe. Her husband was dead, leaving her with the inn and the tavern beside it. Jealous, suspicious men wondered how an old _hag_ could run both at the same time. Maz always countered that if she would have asked the Devil for something, she would have asked for a harem of men and better eyes. “How may I help you today,” she muttered, fixing the multi-lensed contraption on her face. When she raised her head, she looked quite like a surprised insect. 

“Rey,” she said. “Did you call for me? Because I did not hear that it was you from upstairs...”

Beside the fire, Poe Dameron’s dog, BB, kept her ears perked. Rey gestured to the dog.

Maz Kanata followed her arm. “Oh, Poe Dameron is out-of-country, and he thought the journey too dangerous for a one-eyed bitch.” To Rey’s ears, those foul words sounded affectionate. “Is your voice alright?” Maz Kanata asked, turning to Rey once more. “Are you ill?”

Rey slid her bundle out of her coat. Literacy — another boon that she owed to the devil. She pulled out the sheaf of papers. There was a table in the room, and she laid out the things she brought with her: papers, pen, inkwell, with shaking hands. Maz Kanata pushed her bifocals to her forehead, her face carefully blank. Rey had thought of writing this out beforehand, but the house belonged to her father, and she could have been caught and searched by the men in the village, damning herself. 

Rey first penned, _Do not speak_. This she showed to Maz Kanata. Maz Kanata sat herself on the chair across from her, silent. Rey had thought that the old woman would need the glasses to read, but instead she only squinted down at the paper, looking angry.

_My father listens_ , Rey put next. She glanced at that good dog, BB, who still laid by the hearth. The dog lowered its head again, but its ears were still perked. 

Rey glanced at the doorway. Rey wished she could have locked it, but this was Maz Kanata’s house, and she did not want to presume upon the old woman’s business more than she needed to. 

_He listens through insects, animals_ , she wrote next. Maz Kanata turned slowly to BB, coming to the same assumption that Rey held. Though without BB, Rey would have feared mice, and flies, and the occasional cat that took refuge inside the inn. 

Rey was going to request what she needed, when Maz Kanata reached over and settled her hand on the word _father_. Then the old woman raised her wrinkled neck, and drew a line across her throat with her finger.

Rey shook her head.

Maz Kanata raised a finger and slid off of the chair. 

While Rey waited, she heard toenails clack against the floor. Immediately she swept her hands over the papers as BB hopped into the vacated chair. “Hello,” she said innocently.

BB was normally unusually intelligent. Poe Dameron claimed that she was the smartest dog in the country, that if she had two eyes, she would probably be a lawyer. Rey could not be sure that BB was possessed. It could be that her father stared out of that beady, dark eye, or it could be the very soul of that clever bitch. 

When Maz Kanata returned, she made a sound with her mouth that scared BB off the chair. The old woman placed a long and heavy object on the table. Cloth wrapping obscured it from view, but goosebumps erupted up Rey’s arm. The sound of wingbeats pricked her ears. Rey shook her head pointedly — this was not what she wanted. Rey took the paper and wrote _DOLL_. 

Maz Kanata glared at her; the old woman did not move from her seat. Rey pointed at the word, _DOLL_. She thought that the innkeeper would help her, that they were friends. Though Rey was the younger witch, Kylo was _hers_ to deal with. 

The door opened. “Hello, Aunt!” That hearty voice struck the listeners’ ears like thunder. The wind swept up all of the papers into the air and all corners of the room. Rey leaped out of her chair.

Rey did not know why she brought so many papers. She had never spoke of what or who her father was, and she thought that Maz Kanata would be a sympathetic ear. Had she intended to write a whole volume of _Demonology_ for the innkeeper?

“What’s this?” Finn asked. To her horror, he had one of the papers which he held aloft before his face. Rey snatched it from him. His usual smile had frozen to his face. He looked to Maz Kanata and then to Rey. “Are you in trouble?” he asked.

Maz Kanata stood up from her chair. “No,” said Rey, as cheerfully as she could muster. Rey crumpled the paper, the one that read _Do not speak, My father listens_ , _He listens through insects, animals_ , and consigned it to the fire in the hearth. She turned the embers, making sure that it was all reduced to ash. The words crackled in her ears.

“Rey,” said Finn.

She forced a smile upon her face and said “I’m fine.”  
  


Rey stood up and she went to the table. To her horror, Maz Kanata had left the bundled object there. Finn snatched it up before she reached it, and unwrapped the cloth cover. His brow furrowed with alarm and horror. In that moment, Maz Kanata walked down the staircase, and shoved a cloth parcel into Rey’s hands. This one was lighter than the other. Rey slipped it gratefully into her cloak.

Rey was out the door, just after her ears caught the sound of Finn’s raised voice. She gripped Maz Kanata’s gift close to her body and looked to the ground. She realized she had left her inkwell and pen behind, but she did not wish to retrieve it. The wind absorbed all noise and drove men indoors, leaving Rey to her own thoughts. She realized now that she had wanted to _speak_ of her father

For instance, Kylo Ren loved numbers, and names. His human and devil names each carried seven letters: _Ben Solo_ and _Kylo Ren_. For this reason, he gave her the second name, _Kira._ That their names shared the same number of letters and that hers was the reverse of his initials pleased him so: _Kylo Ren_ and _Rey Kira_. 

He counted the steps in the house and the foodstuffs. When he returned home, he would most definitely notice the missing inkwell and paper.

He was sensitive of his ears, and he grew his hair long to hide them. 

Who else but Rey knew these things? Would there ever come a day in one would listen of her childhood, without condemning her for it?

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> henlo!! I did find some writing time after all :3  
> or writing time is something that you make and not something you just find lying around,, hrmm :?
> 
> TW: Haircuts, Minor Violence but it's against a demon, Evil Armitage Hux

She had already gone to bed, when the winds had silenced and all was still in the house. Rey had eaten dinner alone, then changed into her nightgown and let her hair loose, before climbing into her bed. The house was insulated to keep warm even once the fire had gone out, and at last she drifted off to a lonely sleep. Sometime in the night, as if pushed by unseen fingers, the door to her bedroom slipped open.

The girl woke with a start, cold with fear, but she troubled to keep her breathing steady for fear of alerting the intruder. She was curled up on her side like a rabbit, away from the door, but she could sense his presence like a mantle drawn over her. As he approached, her limbs turned wooden, her fingers stiffened. He stopped at her bedside, hovering over her. Watching her. He had to know that she was awake, but he said nothing. Goosebumps prickled along the surface of her skin. Only her face was uncovered by the blankets. He could see in perfect darkness.

Just as she was certain that her body was going to betray her, he touched her. She felt a tugging at her scalp, as fingers carded through the ends of her hair. Her shoulders jumped and her ankles twitched. Her papery eyelids fluttered – these little movements like a puppet jostled accidentally by careless fingers.

 _Father_ , she mumbled, heat rushing to her face. His gentle touch had confused her and she slipped into the logic of dreams, forgetting reality. His hand paused before releasing her. As she turned her head, his fingers grasped the end of her chin. A feather-light touch grazed her lips and the middle of her brow. Her hands fumbled out of the soft confines of the blankets and she reached towards him, grasping.

Some thick, rough membrane met her fingertips. When she twisted her head, she felt no more hands on her. “Father?” she said again, aloud. “Ben?” She sat up in bed, the blankets falling from her thin shoulders. The room was still and all was silent. She raised a hand and touched her still-tingling mouth. She could not, _did not,_ want to believe that he wasn’t home. Yet when she called to him in the human way, he did not answer. The house felt as empty as it was when she went to bed. Frustrated, she fell back to bed and then into fitful dreams of dark haired men and their grasping hands.

.

When she woke the next morning, she knew for certain this time that the devil was in the house, because he was eating everything inside of it. The sun shone brightly through the windows and illuminated the mess that was the kitchen and the results of a raided larder. He resembled a feral beast, with his veined and papery skin and his bloodshot eyes, and the thick pelt of his hair sticking up at the ends around his shoulders. When Rey asked him why he was biting into a hard loaf of bread as if it were an apple, he petulantly answered through mouthfuls that she ‘did not come when he called’, the presumption being that his manners extended only when a lady was called for and present. Rey did not ask where he had been, but she could see that he had been off fighting another devil. If humans were mice, then devils were cats and they fought like cats. Few other things could perturb him so.

While Rey fixed her own breakfast, she glanced at him from her peripheral and came to the conclusion that this Kylo Ren was not capable of gentle touches. Between his windy journey and that duel with his own kind, she could not comprehend why he would return home simply to caress her. Though the devil could be mercurial, his tempers held for an extended period of time. They could not be ignited, extinguished, and then relit when it suited him, like a candle. Unfortunately, this meant that she had dreamed up that visitation. Rey licked her mouth as if ghostly fingers trailed over her lower lip, growing disturbed at the thought. That she could hold such soft feelings towards a devil, and also the man that raised her. She was unaware that the devil watched her in turn.

.

Despite the sour morning, her father felt docile enough to consent to a hair trimming. She took the pair of iron scissors from its drawer and approached him cautiously. Kylo sat in a wooden chair in the middle of the entry room, so that presumably the hair could be swept out of the door. The scissors were about the length of her hand; a touch of rust colored the pivot, but the blades were kept sharp through Rey’s care for when she needed it to cut fabric. The metal glinted in the light. When she contracted the handle, the tips of each blade coalesced into one long, sharp point. She glanced up. He was turned away from her, sitting upright in his chair. He was turned towards the window, where light streamed inside. It would wound him, or perhaps kill him.

Rey took a step closer to him, one hand cradling the blade and the other curled protectively into the rings at the ends of the handles. A thin blanket had been wrapped around his shoulders. He was no less disheveled from his earlier fight. Rey reached out a hand and ran it over the back of his hair. She heard an inhale of breath, but he still offered up no conversation. His hair was a coarse texture; Rey once touched the pelt of a wolf, and that was the sensation that occurred to Rey. Thick, long. She could grab a fistful of it and ride the beast, without hurting it. Only where the wolf was dead and tanned, this one was warm and living. Her fingers brushed down the nape of his pale neck and he moved, imperceptibly. In her left hand, her grip tightened on the handles of the scissors.

.

When it was finished, he stood up promptly from the chair and shook himself like a dog.

“I am not done yet,” Rey protested.

“You are,” he said in a dry voice, before shedding the blanket. This entire time it had sought to disguise the breadth of his shoulders and the form of his body. Once it dropped to the floor, her mouth went dry and her grip retightened on the scissor handles. He ran his shapely hands through the back of his newly shortened hair. He wore a dark shirt opened in a v at his chest and a loose pair of trousers. His sleeves slipped down to his elbows, revealing thick, pale forearms.

He swung his arms and paced around the room, discomfort radiating off of his body. Rey bent down and clutched the blanket in her fingers like a talisman. She was wondering why he was so animated, but she hoped that it was for base reasons. She forced herself to put away the pair of scissors; there was no way she would hurt him in that method. “Well alright,” she said, hoping to cease the trembling in her voice. “Now you can run off and play.”

He raised his head, and his hands fell at her sides. Anxiety prickled along her back.

Then he gave a nod. He gestured at the lengths of dark hair on the floor. “Remember to clean this up,” he said, before heading out the door.

Rey watched him go from her seat by the window, fading into the bright sunlight. She waited for him to return at any second, to come spy on her. Then she tossed the blanket aside and knelt down. She gathered the hair from the smoothed wooden floor in her trembling hands. At intervals, she cast furtive glances to the front door. Once she felt she gathered enough, she stood up and swept a free hand down her dress to brush any stray debris off. She did not know if he was gone to town or gone for the day or out for a brisk walk to stretch his legs.

After placing the hair in her pocket, she went out of doors and into that bright sunlight, humming innocently to herself. An old, dead tree stood away from the house; though it stood upright, inside was hollow after a long ago thunderbolt had burned the insides away. As a child, she could crawl inside of it through a space in the trunk and pretend it were a castle. On this day, she knelt down before it. Her hands reached into the dark interior of the trunk and swept out the cover of leaves, before pulling out the cloth bundle.

“What is that?” asked a voice behind her.

Her hands fumbled woodenly at the sound, but she gripped the corner of the bundle and let it unravel as it fell.

“That won’t work on me,” he sang in a musical voice.

Rey grabbed the prize of her efforts. As she turned to face her adversary, she placed the fistful of hair on the head of the doll, and the clay yielded to the pressure of her fingers, so much so that she was worried she would crush the head. Rey clutched it to her chest as if it would protect her, or as if she could protect it. She did not even get the chance to look closely at it; she only knew the softness of its body, and the remnants of hair that clung to her cold, damp palms.

Kylo stood a ways from her. His expression as blank, but his hands closed into fists at his sides. He looked at the doll nestled against her chest, and again he said, “That won’t work on me.”

Uncertainty was a hand that closed around her throat, preventing her from speaking. So the devil went on, “I expected a little more from you, my dear.” He held out a hand to her. “I’m not human, you see. So it won’t work.”

Rey still could not speak, could not move. She stared dumbly at his open hand,

“Did you make that yourself, or did you buy it from some bog witch?” he asked. :If you tell me now, I need not _pry_ the name from your pretty lips.” Quickly, he added, “I love you,” as if those words made a salve to brush over the threat he had made.

At last she gathered her wits. “Stay _away_ from me,” she snarled, stepping backwards, around the dead tree that once was her castle fortress. The knuckles of the roots caught the back of her heels and nearly tripped her. She raised a hand and placed it on the trunk to catch herself. Kylo smiled, easily moving towards her. Rey clutched at the doll, and her fingers encircled a thin limb. She tugged it. Kylo thrust a knee out and fell forward.

With a cry, Rey leapt away from him before he could lay a hand on her. Immediately he was on all fours, pacing towards her like a wolf. She grabbed the doll’s hand and twisted it between its back, and Kylo fell to the ground. When he raised his head, rage twisted his features and made him unrecognizable to her. “ _Rey,_ ” he said, in a strained voice. “ _Drop it_.” Rey shook her head. “ _When I catch you, I am going to break your fingers_ ,” he said. His mouth peeled into a terrible smile, and red glowed in the coals of his eyes. “ _You’ll live the rest of your life as my bird, little one. You’ll live in a cage and you will eat your meals out of my hands_.”

When he lurched towards her, she grabbed the leg of the doll and yanked it at an angle. She heard a sickening crack and the lights flashed out of the devil’s eyes. He landed heavily against the roots of the dead tree, his hair fallen over his face.

Horror formed a knot in her stomach; she clutched the doll tightly to her chest and stared at the prone form of her father. She was about to approach him, when she heard a low, masculine groan that reverberated from his chest. It was a hideous sound, It was a sound between pleasure and pain, and it ended wetly as he swallowed.

Rey circled around him, not daring to turn her back to him and yet knowing that she must flee while he remained incapacitated.

.

Now that she was an orphan once more, Rey entered the village. She needed a horse to get away from this place as quickly as possible. She understood that Kylo would not rest until he possessed her, if not for the fact of what he was but what he had said to her. Rey shuddered to think of what would have come to pass had Maz Kanata’s doll had failed to constrain him... Now there was a debt that may never be repaid; her only hope was to flee the country, or travel like Poe Dameron. They say the cities poorly enforced the King’s own laws against witchcraft; the rich thirst for eternal life and power, and to that end they willingly patronized hidden guilds of alchemists and necromancers who do unspeakable things for dark gods. Rey’s fingers curled tightly around the doll; no, she would not sell herself in such a way. She would rather forsake witchcraft all together – kill the past. Perhaps she would get on a boat and sail to a faraway country; she was unsure if Kylo Ren could cross the ocean…

As Rey pondered the futures she supposedly held in her grasp, she failed to notice the audience that she had gathered, nor hear their coarse voices. It was not until a hand gripped her shoulder and pulled her to a stop.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” sneered a man’s voice.

Rey turned and saw a narrow face, topped with a shock of red hair. It was Armitage Hux, the Constable. Heart in her throat, Rey attempted to clutch her coat tighter around her with the ends of her fingers. “I am going to,” she began, “the inn.” She met those cold green eyes.

Hux’s gloved fingers dug into her shoulder. “What business do you have at the inn?” he asked innocently. “Pray tell, but that _den_ of _sin_ is not a suitable place for a _proper_ young woman to visit. Does your _father_ know where you go?”

Rey wished to spit upon him. The Constable hated Benjamin Solo, for what reason she did not know. “My business is–,” she began, struggling to keep an even tone. Now she knew that two more local toughs had circled her, dogs of the Constable who enjoy fucking a witch before ducking her into the nearby river until she drowned. Rey cursed herself for her own carelessness, but she thought she would be safe; her father’s position normally protected her from such harassment. The devil punished those that would cross her. “My father knows _exactly_ where I am,” she said, changing her tune.

“I wonder,” said Constable Hux, digging his thumb into her collarbone so deep that it hurt. “Tell me, what have you got in your coat? It’s such a beautiful day, considering the tempest we’ve endured for the last week.”

“ _N-no_ –.” Rey began. The men behind her grabbed the coat and tugged that her arms loosened. The doll fell to their feet.

Hux leaned down to snatch it up in his hands. As he stared down at it, his lips stretched into a grim smile.

“No,” said Rey. The Constable grabbed one of its limbs and plucked it off as if it were an insect. “ _No!_ ” she shrieked, horrified. She tried to tear away, but hands grasped her shoulders and wrists and held her back.

The Constable took a distinct pleasure in watching Rey’s agony, as he removed the remaining limbs and then ripped the head off of the doll. Rey hoped that Maz Kanata’s magick had weakened somewhat, or that Kylo had summoned the strength to nullify the doll’s effect, but she was unsure. She never wanted to hurt him, but she had been afraid of him and his natural capacities. She was a failure of a witch, but to the men holding her she was still that – a witch.

The Constable rolled the clay head in between his gloved hands, glee stretched across his face.

“I have you now, you little _bitch_ ,” he said.

As they took her away, Rey wished for her father.


End file.
